Relieved his vision is impaired only by swelling, slugger Paul Konerko believes he can return to the White Sox lineup against the Twins on Tuesday at the latest.
“I’m probably going to be back out there playing long before it all goes away, too,” Konerko said Saturday while sporting severe discoloring and some swelling around his left eye one day after the Cubs’ Jeff Samardzija hit him with a pitch. “It’ll probably hang around for a few weeks where you can see remnants of it.”
Nevertheless, Konerko said he knew the injury wasn’t severe Friday when he returned to the clubhouse after getting hit, and he hasn’t experienced any dizziness.
“Once I knew that what I was seeing was the swelling, not something wrong with my eyeball …” Konerko said. “As soon as I knew that was the case, it really wasn’t even that painful. You just know you can’t see clearly out of it. It’s more frustrating in that sense because at that point everything else feels great. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just kind of you have one eye and you can’t play with one eye.”
Konerko said Samardzija’s pitch grazed his helmet before striking him.
“I think the way the helmet came off, it definitely caught the visor, which I don’t know if that helped or hurt,” Konerko said. “It forced it downward. Maybe if it hit me a little bit higher it would have stayed off my face. It’s not the first time I’ve been hit in the face. It happens out there sometimes.”
As of Saturday afternoon, Konerko hadn’t spoken with Samardzija, who insists the pitch wasn’t intentional and has expressed a desire to apologize personally.
Konerko said the pitch looked to him at the time as a cut fastball or a slider, adding the velocity indicated it wasn’t a fastball. Samardzija has said it was a split-fingered fastball.
“When it came out of his hand, I was staying in there holding my ground because I figured it was going to be one of those two pitches, and that’s what it looked like,” Konerko said. “And then instead of going either straight down or down and away from me, it just stayed high and unraveled into me. It just chased me up and in.”
Sox manager Robin Ventura said it would be a “miracle” if Konerko could play Sunday, but Konerko said much of the swelling has subsided.
“I iced it probably a bunch of times before I went to bed (Friday) night,” said Konerko. who underwent a CT scan that revealed no fractures and tests that showed he didn’t have a concussion. “When I woke up this morning it was completely shut, and I knew it would be. You can’t ice it through the night. Since I’ve been (at Wrigley Field), there has been a lot of improvement as far as how wide I can open it, how much I can see out of it.
“You want to be able to see, but it’s really not that big a deal as far as, like I have no worries that it’s just a matter of time.”
Twitter @MDGonzales
